Will to Find
by Brent Dax
Summary: William Scully finds himself in an FBI school-crime department, unaware of his powerful allies and even more powerful enemies. (Chapter 4 uploaded.)
1. Midnight Assault

This is chapter 1 of a (hopefully) continuing story. Please read and review--I have no clue as to the quality of this work. 

**Title**: Will to Find  
**Author**: Brent Dax brentdax@cpan.org 

**Summary**: William Scully finds himself in an FBI school-crime department, unaware of his powerful allies and even more powerful enemies.  
**Disclaimer**: I don't own the X-Files, Scully, Mulder, William, or anyone else you recognize. Chris Carter, 1013, and Fox do. Don't bother suing--I don't have any money. The people you don't recognize probably belong to me. You can use them, but please mention me and don't do anything age-inappropriate with them.  
**Archiving**: Go for it--just send me a link.  
**Dedication**: to Darci, as always. 

**1: Midnight Assault**  
_April 20, 2012_

They came in the middle of the night. 

A black sedan pulled up to the dusty country house and four men in black suits stepped out. The attackers pulled out guns and walked to the door. 

One of them--the leader--pointed his gun at the lock and pulled the trigger. He kicked the door in and stepped into the dim illumination inside. The others followed. 

"Spread out. Find the boy." 

The other three men nodded and started a methodical search. Two went upstairs. A shot rang out and a woman let out her final scream. Another shot--this time one of the attackers was down. 

Another attacker opened the door to William's room. "Found him!" he yelled before being shot in the back. Score two for the father. 

The two remaining attackers ran up the stairs. The father shot the first of them, but was killed by the second. 

William had woken with the first shot at the door. Now he ran to his father, grabbed the gun, and pointed it at the last attacker. 

The attacker halted. He had orders--don't harm the boy. He put his gun on the ground. "Don't shoot." 

William's gun shook in his hands. He started to lower it. 

_Now's my chance_. The attacker rushed at the boy. 

William quickly raised the gun and pulled the trigger. The attacker's face registered surprise as he died; blood splattered on the wall, redder than the boy's hair. 

Trembling, the ten-year-old ran to a phone and called the sheriff's department. 

* * *

The flash of the photographer's camera lit up the bedroom as the sheriffs--there were no police in this rural area--tried to understand what had happened. 

"Jesus, this is way too weird", the head sheriff said. "Okay, let's begin at the beginning. We see four assailants, all dead, and three victims, two dead. Assailants were all in black suits, carrying Desert Eagles. They apparently used the sedan outside--with government plates." 

"What agency?" a deputy asked. 

"Don't know--no ID, either on the sedan or the assailants. Plates aren't bogus, but they're allocated from the covert ops pool." 

"Covert ops?" 

"Yeah. CIA, NSA, some people in the DOD, a few divisions of the FBI." He frowned. "Only the FBI is authorized to do anything within the US, and their people always carry ID." The head sheriff had once been an FBI agent, but had quit when he started raising a family. 

"Weapons serial numbers?" the deputy suggested. 

"Weapons issued to people using covert ops plates don't have serial numbers," the head sheriff said, frowning. 

"So we have no idea who they were." 

"Exactly." 

The deputy sighed. "Between that and the boy's statements, we can probably rule out resisting arrest. I think it's just self defense." 

"Probably. There's no reason to believe otherwise, at least for the boy--and he's the only one left to prosecute." 

Social Services came by that afternoon to pick up William. He knew that this was the second time in his life they had done so, although he didn't know the circumstances of the first time. 

* * *

William spent two years in six foster homes. He hated every second of it. 

That's why he listened when an agent asked him to work for the FBI's School Security Department. 


	2. Quantico

**Title**: Will to Find  
**Author**: Brent Dax brentdax@cpan.org  
**Rating**: PG-13  
**Spoilers**: "William" now; future chapters may include later episodes.  
**Keywords**: William, future; future chapters may add other keywords. 

**Summary**: William Scully finds himself in an FBI school-crime department,unaware of his powerful allies and even more powerful enemies. 

**Disclaimer**: I don't own the people you recognize. Maybe some day when I'm rich I'll buy them and license them to fanfic writers (and then I 'll bankroll my own Presidential campaign *rolls eyes*). The people you don't recognize probably belong to me. You can use them, but please mention me and don't do anything age-inappropriate with them. 

**Archiving**: Go for it--just send me a link. 

**Feedback**: *PLEASE*! I have no idea how good this is or if I should continue it. Praise, constructive criticism, and advice should be sent to brentdax@cpan.org or posted as a review of this story; flames should be sent to the bit bucket. 

**Dedication**: to Darci, as always. 

**2. Quantico**  
_June 29, 2014_

"Are you sure about this?" the social worker asked. "This is a nearly irreversible decision, William..." 

"Very sure. I have no reason to want to stay in the foster care system--and every reason to want to leave." 

The social worker sighed. "Okay." She took out a form and set it in front of him. "We both need to sign this." 

He read the title--Petition for Adult Status--and scrawled his signature on the paper, then gave it to her. She wrote her neat signature on the paper and set it aside. 

"This one too." Employment Contract (Federal Bureau of Investigation/School Security Department). He skimmed the contract and signed. 

"Okay. Congratulations William, you're now a federal employee." 

* * *

As he left the orientation, William looked over his Quantico class schedule. 
    
    
    MATHOT, WILLIAM 1013-42
    COZENS, DANIELLE 1121-42
    T I M E S
    START END ROOM COURSE
    Monday, Wednesday, Friday
    8:00 9:30 T-31 Technological Investigation
    10:00 11:30 G-60 Field Investigation
    1:00 3:00 G-81 Forensics
    Tuesday, Thursday
    8:00 10:30 W-03 Weapon Usage
    12:00 2:30 G-19 SSD Special Training
    

The first half of his summer would be spent at Quantico; the second half would be as a sort of intern in some department of the FBI. They had asked for a list of departments he was interested in; he included the Technology Crimes Department, the Violent Crimes Department, the Counter-Terrorism Department, and the Unexplained Cases Department. 

His entry exams indicated that he was good with computers (no duh--he'd been programming for years) and weapons (one of his foster homes was inner-city, so he knew how to use a gun). His schedule was identical to his partner's, apparently to teach them to work together. That was a good thing--Field Investigation and Forensics would be difficult. 

* * *

William walked down the hall of the dormatory building. He was looking for his assigned room. 

_307...305...303._ He opened the door and set down his suitcase. 

A girl about his age looked up from a couch. "William Mathot?" 

He nodded. "Danielle Cozens?" 

"Yup." 

He would be sharing the dorm room with her--and she would most likely become his partner. They preliminarily matched people based on complementary skill sets (no use having two musclebound agents working together in a department that required such versatility), similar internship requests, and similar personalities. When possible, they tried for opposite-sex partners--it was easier to cover a boy and a girl being together a lot. If they couldn't stand each other, they would be rematched. 

"Nice to meet you." He shook her hand, considering her appearance. She was about an inch shorter than him, but noticably more muscular. Brown hair to his red, blue eyes to his brown. He knew from the little information he'd been given that she was the same age as him, and about twenty pounds lighter. He noted with an almost clinical detachment that her body was relatively mature for her age. Her background was not dissimilar to his, but not identical either; her parents had disappeared under mysterious circumstances when she was seven and she had been through the foster home system ever since. They had also said that her skills were primarily in scientific work and general investigative technique. 

"You too." 

"So," he said, looking around the common room, "which departments did you sign up for?" 

The common room had a couch, a TV, and five doors. One led to the bathroom, the other four led to bedrooms. The dorms normally held four people per common room, but they apparently hadn't recruited enough people to fill the dorm building up, so he and Danielle had a common room to themselves. Each bedroom had a bed, a desk, a chair, a keyboard, a mouse, and a screen. Most students had their own computers, and those that didn't could borrow one from the Academy. 

"DNA Lab, Anti-Fraud, Anti-Corruption, Unexplained Cases." 

William nodded. "Then we'll probably be in UCD. That's my only overlap." 

Danielle smiled. "Great--that was my top choice. And call me Dani." 

"Then I'm Will." 

* * *

The T building was designed for classes on computers. William stepped into the entry hallway. One of the walls was glass; behind the glass was the mainframe room. A sign on the wall explained that there had once been a giant PDP-11 in there, one of two computers the FBI owned at the time. It had been replaced several times; the room's current occupant was a Cray Q40-II, a 40-qubit quantum computer. These were some of the most powerful computers in the world, about a hundred times as powerful as the Department of Energy's awe-inspiring ASCI White had been ten years ago. They were used for dozens of things, from comparing DNA samples (finding anyone in the DNA database took about 0.31 seconds) to cracking encryption codes (3.6 seconds for the encryption used to protect credit-card numbers, a month or two for some of the world's most powerful encryption algorithms). Once again, the FBI had two. They costed roughly $500 million each. 

William wouldn't be using that computer, however. His class was basically about hacking for investigative purposes. He walked in to T-31 and took a seat. Each desk had a ten-inch flat panel, a keyboard, a mouse, a sync port, and a DVD-RW drive. 

Ten inches wasn't big, but it was more than twice the size of the screen on the handheld William plugged into the sync port. William knew that there wasn't too much that had changed in handhelds since he was born. The same companies made them--William's was made by Handspring; they were roughly the same length and width; and the handwriting-recognition software was more or less the same. 

The thing that had changed most was what they were used for. More than half the population had their ID on handhelds, since it was easier to verify and harder to steal; some places in upscale neighborhoods no longer accepted old-style IDs. Credit card and debit accounts now were often done via handheld--short-range radio communication came in handy there. Cell phones had long since been consolidated with handheld computers. And they often carried data from place to place. 

Like the notes William was about to take in his first class. 


	3. Shot

**Title**: Will to Find  
**Author**: Brent Dax brentdax@cpan.org  
**Rating**: PG-13  
**Spoilers**: "William" now; future chapters may include later episodes.  
**Keywords**: William, future; future chapters may add other keywords. 

**Summary**: William Scully finds himself in an FBI school-crime department,unaware of his powerful allies and even more powerful enemies. 

**Disclaimer**: I'm not sure if Chris Carter deserves to own the people you recognize, but he does; I'm not making any money off this. The people you don't recognize probably belong to me. You can use them, but please mention me and don't do anything age-inappropriate with them. 

**Archiving**: Go for it--just send me a link. 

**Feedback**: *PLEASE*! I have no idea how good this is or if I should continue it. Praise, constructive criticism, and advice should be sent to brentdax@cpan.org or posted as a review of this story; flames should be sent to the bit bucket. 

**Dedication**: to Darci, as always. 

**3. Shot**  
_July 8, 2014_

Smoke curled around Cancerman's face as he spoke to the group. 

"We have a serious problem." He drew on his cigarette and exhaled. "William Scully has been recruited by the FBI." 

"What for?" one asked. 

"School Security Department. I thought that they would become a problem, but not in this way." 

"Why is this a problem? Didn't your son take care of that?" another said. 

"Jeffrey Spender is an idiot. He must have gotten that from his mother. The injection made his abilities difficult to get at--it didn't destroy them." He put out his cigarette. "William Scully is the one thing standing between us and the success of Colonization. He can make or break it. He must not be allowed to break it. He must not be allowed to find the truth." 

"So he doesn't know who he is yet?" 

"Correct. However, he's lined up to work under his mother. I have no doubt in my mind that she'll discover who he really is." 

"So what do we do?" 

"We see to it that he never sees his mother--and try to take him for ourselves." 

* * *

"Thirty-two people are dead and over a hundred wounded in this latest suicide bombing..." The CNN reporter's voice droned on from Tel Aviv. Another day, another terrorist attack. 

Danielle sat at the other end of the couch, reading a cryptography text. She sighed and closed the book, telling him to switch to ABC. 

Will was about to change the channel when something told him to roll off the couch. He did so just as the common room's window broke. Something slammed into the couch and stuck there. Danielle jumped off the couch, throwing her book aside. 

He looked to see what it was. A dart. 

William reached down, took out his handheld and popped out a headset embedded in it. He dialed a number. 

"Quantico student services." 

"William Mathot in room 303. Somebody just tried to shoot me through a window." 

"Are you armed?" 

"No, I haven't been issued a service weapon yet." 

"Okay. I'll send up some people. Stay away from the window." 

* * *

The four agents who went to room 303 had started by propping up a bulletproof vest in the window. It was the best they could do on short notice. Three of them examined the scene, while one talked to William and Danielle. 

"I was sitting and watching TV when...I dunno. Maybe I saw something out of the corner of my eye or something." William shrugged. "In any case, I rolled off the couch and that thing came through the window and landed where my chest would've been." 

"Did you try to locate the shooter?" 

"No. I didn't have a weapon, so I didn't see the point in putting myself where I could be shot again." 

The agents nodded. "Not a bad decision under the circumstances. What about you?" he asked Danielle. 

"I was sitting on the other end of the couch, studying. I didn't notice anything until the window broke." 

One of the agents was carrying a radio. Someone started talking over it; the agent grabbed the radio and listened to it. 

"We've found a *crackle* rifle on the roof of the G building." 

The G building was the one across from William's window. The agent depressed the button on the side of the radio. "A dart rifle?" 

"Yeah. No serial number." 

"Okay, take it in. Be careful about fingerprints." She turned to William. "Well, we have a weapon and a dart." 

"Do we have any indication of what was in the dart?" Danielle asked. 

One of the agents walked over to the couch, took a picture of the dart's position, and pulled it out. He examined it. "From the color, I'd guess that it's a fairly powerful tranquilizer." 

William nodded. 

"I'll get maintenence to install bulletproof glass up here." 

"Thanks." 


	4. E-mail

**Title**: Will to Find  
**Author**: Brent Dax brentdax@cpan.org  
**Rating**: PG-13  
**Spoilers**: "William" now; future chapters may include later episodes.  
**Keywords**: William, future; future chapters may add other keywords. 

**Summary**: William Scully finds himself in an FBI school-crime department,unaware of his powerful allies and even more powerful enemies. 

**Disclaimer**: I don't own the people you recognize. Life is ridiculous like that. The people you don't recognize probably belong to me. You can use them, but please mention me and don't do anything age-inappropriate with them. 

**Archiving**: Go for it--just send me a link. 

**Feedback**: *PLEASE*! I have no idea how good this is or if I should continue it. Praise, constructive criticism, and advice should be sent to brentdax@cpan.org or posted as a review of this story; flames should be sent to the bit bucket. 

**Dedication**: to Darci, as always. 

**4. E-mail**  
_July 10, 2014_

William sighed as the instructor started lecturing on the SSD. He'd read the brochure--he knew all of this. _Maybe it's for the idiots who didn't pay attention_, he thought. He frowned and started taking notes. 

"The School Security Department was formed in 2008. I'm sure you all remember the terrible crimes committed in schools that year. There were seven school shootings, twelve large gang fights, and two terrorist incidents. The total body count was well over three hundred. 

"Obviously, Congress had to do something. Their first attempt was the Clinton School Crime Act of 2009, which funded programs to train teachers to use guns and keep an eye on students. Unfortunately, that didn't work too well--the teachers couldn't get close enough to the students to find anything out. There were 183 deaths that year. 

"So the FBI told Congress that it would figure something out and report back to it. In late 2010, the School Security Department meetings were held in secret, to avoid public outrage; the first agents were recruited in 2011." 

William added the part in his head that the instructor didn't say. _They recruited primarily orphans with exceptional minds and bodies and gave them the training they needed to be Special Agents. They promised them college scholarships, gave them guns, and sent them to find the gangbangers, school shooters and terrorists before they struck._ Not that any of them minded being recruited--for many, it was the best thing that had ever happened to them. 

"In 2012, there were 23 deaths--all of them would-be attackers." 

The instructor turned a page in his notes. "It's important to note who knows about SSD and who doesn't. Law enforcement does; virtually all principals do; many teachers do; and most of the foster-home system does. It's an open secret in Congress and the Presidency. And that's about it. You must keep your cover as well as you can. That's what today's class is about." 

The instructor started talking about how to cover up activities. William ignored this; his handheld was recording the lecture anyway. Instead he started up an instant-messaging application on his handheld and sent a message to Danielle. 
    
    
    W> Are you finding this as boring as I am?
    D> Yup.
    D> Find out anything about the shooter?
    W> Not yet.
    D> The thing that troubles me is that he shot at you, not me.
    W> He probably had another cartridge waiting for you.
    D> Or a bullet.
    

William's handheld beeped gently--an e-mail had arrived. He read it and switched back to the IM app. 
    
    
    W> Crime lab results arrived. No fingerprints, no DNA.
    D> Argh. I don't know how they'll ever catch this guy.
    

The teacher cleared his throat and started explaining their reading assignment for the day. William shut down the IM app and wrote down the assignment. 

* * *

William was studying later that night when his handheld beeped. He picked it up and read the e-mail. 
    
    
    To: William Mathot mathotw@ssd.fbi.gov
    From: (unknown)
    Subject: Meeting
    Meet me on top of your building at 9pm.
    I have some information you need to know.
    It is imperative that you come alone.
    --DT
    

William checked his clock. It was 8:15. He grabbed a jacket and the gun they had given him. He'd be ready for anything. 

Well, anything except what actually happened. 


End file.
